We studied the distribution of repetitive sequence elements capable of forming double-stranded regions in nuclear RNA of HeLa, KB, and L cells. In human RNA populations, we called these regions duplex Alu family RNA (dAfRNA) because they represent transcripts of the highly reiterated family of DNA regions known as "Alu family DNA" (Rubin et al., Nature (London) 284:372-374, 1980). Although the dAfRNA populations of both human cell lines (HeLa and KB) have low sequence complexity, they represent… CONTINUE READING